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Ed Miliband has signalled a change in Labour's immigration policy by disclosing he wants to change the economic rules to do more to help people already living and working in Britain.
In an interview with the Guardian, he concedes that immigration is being discussed in "every kitchen" and that the Labour party has been too quick to dismisses the concerns of ordinary people as "prejudice".
He says the government should strengthen the law so that employment agencies cannot – even informally – favour foreign workers.
"In sectors where there is a problem, every medium and large employer that has more than 25% foreign workers – double the average share of migrants in the population – should have to notify Jobcentre Plus."
Miliband said he wanted to reframe the debate on immigration by pledging to reform a "brutish labour market" that encourages the excessive use of low-paid immigrants and allows British companies to shirk their responsibilities to train workers. But he distanced himself from remarks made by the former prime minister Gordon Brown, suggesting that it would be wrong to promise too much. "We cannot tell people things we cannot deliver. We cannot say 'British jobs for British workers'."
He admitted the Labour government allowed too many immigrants from eastern Europe into the country by lifting controls on EU accession countries such as Poland too quickly, but denied his party lied about immigration, as claimed by his former adviser Lord Glasman.
Miliband argued that immigration should be seen as a class issue, since the evidence shows lower-paid workers and the unskilled suffer disproportionately, especially from the impact of cheap eastern European labour. He said he was entering the debate on immigration in the context of his call for a more responsible capitalism.
"There has been a collision of a large amount of immigration from eastern Europe and a UK labour market that is frankly too often nasty, brutish and short-term," he said.
As part of a policy review, Miliband proposes sanctions against labour agencies that advertise solely for immigrant workers, an early warning system if some industries are employing disproportionately large number of foreign workers, a doubling of fines if employers undercut the minimum wage, and no early lifting of migrant barriers for new EU countries such as Croatia.
He also told the Guardian he would review immigrants' access to benefits and "local connection" rules for council house waiting lists. "There are issues around the pace of change in communities, pressures on public resources and making sure entitlements work fairly," he said.
"There are clearly issues that people have been raising over a number of years. We have to look at where the rules are right and, if they are wrong, what we can do about it. You have to have the right entitlements in place."
Miliband said: "We have got to talk about this issue because the public are talking about it. I am for politics that is relevant to people's lives. We cannot have a debate going on in every kitchen, street and every neighbourhood and the Labour party not talk about it."
He said: "Labour has to change its approach to immigration but you cannot answer people's concerns on immigration unless you change the way your economy works.
"Overall, immigration has benefits, but the thing we did not talk about was its relevance to class, and the issue of where the benefits and burdens lie. If you need a builder, it is good that there are more coming into the country and lowering the price of construction, but if you are a British builder it is less beneficial.
"In government we were not sufficiently alive to the burdens, so when people said they were concerned that their wages were being driven down by people from eastern Europe our response too often was to argue that these people are saying 'stop the world, I want to get off', or at worst 'this is prejudice'. I think we were too starry-eyed about globalisation's benefits.
"We have to confront the fact you cannot address people's concerns about immigration unless you change the way the economy works.
"It is the short-term, fast-buck culture that is at the root of this, so we have to look at what incentives we can give companies so they do not rely on a pool of short-term temporary labour that will come to this country and go away again."
He said he did not advocate ending the free movement of labour within the European Union, or even think it possible.
Miliband said he was not "trying to mischaracterise Gordon Brown" over his controversial speech on British jobs for British workers in 2007. "But the problem is that phrase came across as giving the impression we were promising to do something we cannot deliver." He said fact and anecdote had to be separated in the debate, pointing to evidence that immigration drove down wages mainly in lower-paid sectors, and created unemployment only in some localised markets such as catering, construction and food processing.
Although government evidence shows that 370,000 people who came to the country as foreign nationals are claiming benefits, Miliband pointed out that proportionately fewer migrants were claiming benefits than in the UK labour force.
Polling recently published by Policy Exchange shows that a Labour shift on immigration and welfare would be the single most important issues to win back Labour swing voters.
A Conservative spokeswoman said: "Ed Miliband says he is not going to promise British jobs for British workers, but he seems to have fallen into same trap as Gordon Brown. He still opposes everything the government is going to do to cut and control immigration, and still is not offering a single credible immigration policy of his own."
First steps in Labour immigration policy
• Impose maximum transitional controls for 7 years on the future EU accession countries such as Croatia. No change to free movement of labour within EU.
• Stricter enforcement of minimum wage laws and doubling of fines to £10,000 for those that break the law. Currently fewer than 7 employers have been fined.
• Regulate employment agencies so they cannot operate exclusionary practices, such as advertising they only have Poles on their books.
• An early warning system so that job centres councils and national government can identify sectors where workforce is dominated by low wage labour from other countries. Areas currently include construction, food processing and catering.
• Review immigrants access to key benefits, public services and access to housing lists.
• Review the relevance of government caps on immigration numbers.
Comments
21 June 2012 10:56PM
In a perfect world, we would have no nation states, no barriers to free migration, and all men would love and respect each other as brothers.
Sadly we don't live in that world, and so we have to legislate accordingly.
21 June 2012 10:58PM
About bloody time.
21 June 2012 10:58PM
Andrew Neather, Blair's adviser said he wanted to relax immigration laws to "open up the UK to mass migration" and lo and behold began 13 years of open door immigration. That's fine if you voted for that, but I don't think a lot of the working class did, now having to compete with foreign migrants who are willing to work for nothing, and areas of the country which have become completely segregated from the rest of society.
21 June 2012 10:58PM
Well I never.
21 June 2012 11:00PM
......."We have to confront the fact you cannot address people's concerns about immigration unless you change the way the economy works"...........
The economy works like this : You outsource much work to the far east or anywhere cheaper, hire cheap migrants on minimum wage doing jobs that many British people wouldn't do - It's neoliberalism. The Tories make soundbites whilst excluding bonafide students from studying thus losing the economy billions in lost revenue - Anyway the Tories don't much like paying taxes in this country and would rather keep it abroad.
We have to cast aside this ridiculous adherence to a clearly broken and corrupt neoliberal model, it isn't working.
21 June 2012 11:01PM
The only thing discussed in our kitchen is the incompetence of the Coalition.
We don't and haven't used the Garden due to a bunch of Inland Revenue Clerks who never seem to go to work on one side and a Restaurant Owner's family over the back who prepare the takeaways and freeze them for his restaurant.
Miller Band and his crew don't feature ... it will take a lot to forget Bliar and his Shower. Labour can re-enlist the Liberals for all I care.
21 June 2012 11:01PM
Well done Ed, this is a total winner. Let's make the case that blanket acceptance does no favours, including to those talented immigrants we do want to attract here. Of course, genuine asylum seekers are another matter altogether; that aside, let's make it easier for the best, and much, much harder for the rest.
Everyone accepts that entirely, 100% open borders are a bad thing, same for 100% closed. Let's not pretend that it's racist or whatever to then have a debate about where in the middle the threshold should be. On the contrary, it's a crucial policy question v. much worth of public discussion.
21 June 2012 11:01PM
" An early warning system so that job centres councils and national government can identify sectors where workforce is dominated by low wage labour from other countries. Areas currently include construction, food processing and catering. "
I'm unclear what action they would take in this instance. Still, glad to hear a policy from Ed. Looking forward to hearing more.
21 June 2012 11:02PM
still doesnt get it, the eastern europeans are not the problem, at least they want to work.
21 June 2012 11:02PM
And where would you be Mr. Milliband if the UK had restricted immigration from Eastern Europe? The true sign of desperation in Labour is when they start to bang the immigration drum? I'm a lifelong Labourite but I would never vote Labour again.
21 June 2012 11:03PM
Easy to say when the UK is no longer Valhalla for migrants and hasn't been since the (GASP) pound collapsed a few years ago and British banks were bailed out massively, before the Eurozone crisis had even ejaculated.
21 June 2012 11:03PM
She's having a fucking laugh.
The Conservatives led by the desperately out-of-her-depth May is doing fuck all to curb EU immigration - especially the low-skilled kind, but rather doing everything possible to deter high-skilled, highly trained immigrants from outside the EU - exactly the sort those who will actually prove to be the better kind of immigrant and are less likely to compete for blue collar jobs, the sort that don't claim benefits and aren't eligible to claim benefits - from coming and working in the UK.
They've been mum of EU immigration - and haven't passed a single law to curb or get a grip on it, instead opting to go after the sitting ducks.
21 June 2012 11:07PM
False analogy.
Ralph Miliband was fleeing totalitarianism and institutional anti-Semitism in Eastern Europe. The current influx of Poles and Lithuanians and Latvians are economic migrants.
Pretty much akin to how the Asian Ugandan immigrants of the 70's were fleeing a racist government, but the current crop of Asian immigrants are, mostly, economic migrants.
21 June 2012 11:08PM
Sorry but I don't see anything here but a few words. Promises to 'Review' are meaningless - we know how much we can trust any Politicians word and I can just hear the Judges citing the Human Rights Act.....
As I understand it Labour, despite criticising the Government ideas on limiting Immigration are now saying that we need to limit Immigration. Wonderful idea!!
21 June 2012 11:08PM
This is just hand-wringing and pretence, not meant any more than Cameron's attempt to reform the Lords.
Lib-Lab-Con have used immigration to declare war on the public and to leave us fighting for jobs like rats jumping up at a piece of meat. All part of a divide and rule strategy. You cannot blame poor migrants from wanting to move here from their own countries. It just so happens that they act like a convenient stick to beat us with, with the inevitable overload of unsupported social resources. They actually act as a recruitment engine for the right, which means that the three leading parties have connived at this together, seeding future votes. Despicable. (As for the Lords reform, they are just going through the motions, we can all see that).
21 June 2012 11:08PM
They will say anything to try and get back into power!
Once bitten, twice shy, it take ages to sort out the mess we are in I'll never trust his mob again!
Stick to eating cheese with Grommit!
21 June 2012 11:09PM
Do you really believe the events of World War II should dictate his policies?
21 June 2012 11:12PM
Bingo. Today immigration, tomorrow welfare?
21 June 2012 11:13PM
He doesn't really need to say anything, the coalition are doing their best to become un-electable.
21 June 2012 11:14PM
This sock puppet and the wretched, desperate party he 'leads' turned this country in to a dirty, dangerous, bogus asylum-seeking war criminal-loving benefit lavatory.
He would do better to simply shut his Primrose-Hillified mouth regarding anything to do with 13 disastrous years of NuLab on anything to do with their open door policy to the entire third world, the crowning glory of which was a tomato lorry containing 58 dead Chinese illegal immigrants lying sprawled between crates of tomatoes.
21 June 2012 11:16PM
Well well, what's going on ?
Why this, now ? Because of "polling by Policy Exchange" ? I was hoping they'd moved away from opinion poll politics - that way lies irrelevance.
On the contrary, I was all encouraged, myself, that Labour was looking for radically new ways to sort out the world, such as localism.
And now, in the midst of economic turmoil, Ed starts going on about imigration?
I don't get it.
21 June 2012 11:18PM
It must have looked wonderful from the honcho seat in the social control frame - cut all social housing so everyone is zoned by their incomes, watch Asians and blacks get squeezed into a pecking order, undercut all wage levels so the minimum wage becomes the desirable wage. Everyone runs harder to stand still.
Blair finishes as a Labour Party leader buying a 4 million quid house in Connaught Square, The Labour Party had origins in a strike in a Bradford mill. How can a political party be so comprehensively betrayed?
21 June 2012 11:20PM
Mass immigration in the Labour years simply gutted the British working class in employment opportunities. If Ed Miliband sticks by his word, this will be absolutely brilliant. The country is too damn full to accommodate more people.
21 June 2012 11:22PM
Er, yeah. So anyway, what do you think of this policy?
21 June 2012 11:23PM
And where would you be Mr. Milliband if the UK had restricted immigration from Eastern Europe?
Do you really believe the events of World War II should dictate his policies?
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No getting on a band wagon should.
21 June 2012 11:24PM
The permanent solution to economic migration is summed up in 3 simple words.
GLOBAL MINIMUM WAGE
Of course, that will never happen in our lifetimes....
21 June 2012 11:25PM
Mass immigration in the Labour years simply gutted the British working class in employment opportunities. If Ed Miliband sticks by his word, this will be absolutely brilliant. The country is too damn full to accommodate more people.
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Nothing will change, not under the Tories, not under Labour
21 June 2012 11:27PM
In such a "brutish" labour market, why not introduce a decent minimum wage and legislate against casualisation of work rather than pander to Daily Fail and Sun inspired racism. By the way, Poland is not Eastern European, it's in central Europe.
21 June 2012 11:27PM
Great point, but try and stick another Indian doctor on an already xenophobic population. Britain really needs to go it alone. Very soon, they will be crying out for immigrants, just like Australia is now.
21 June 2012 11:28PM
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21 June 2012 11:29PM
They've been mum of EU immigration - and haven't passed a single law to curb or get a grip on it, instead opting to go after the sitting ducks.
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Don't you understand, we are in the EU, we have no borders to stop anyone coming in.
Ed might as well promise to stop it raining during the summer
21 June 2012 11:30PM
I'm telling you, he looks more and more like Wallace everyday. Can anyone confirm if he has a dog called Gromit?
21 June 2012 11:31PM
How come when Milliband does it, you lot at the Guardian call it a policy shift .. subtle and obviously positive .
whereas when the Coalition does it , you call it a U-turn ........blatant and obviously negative.
Explain please, someone .... !.
Thanks!
21 June 2012 11:31PM
The huge increases in migrants over the last decade were partly due to a politically motivated attempt by ministers to radically change the country and "rub the Right's nose in diversity", according to Andrew Neather, a former adviser to Tony Blair, Jack Straw and David Blunkett.
He said Labour's relaxation of controls was a deliberate plan to "open up the UK to mass migration" but that ministers were nervous and reluctant to discuss such a move publicly for fear it would alienate its "core working class vote".
As a result, the public argument for immigration concentrated instead on the economic benefits and need for more migrants.
Critics said the revelations showed a "conspiracy" within Government to impose mass immigration for "cynical" political reasons.
Mr Neather was a speech writer who worked in Downing Street for Tony Blair and in the Home Office for Jack Straw and David Blunkett, in the early 2000s.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/6418456/Labour-wanted-mass-immigration-to-make-UK-more-multicultural-says-former-adviser.html
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Tony Blair. What a twat.
21 June 2012 11:32PM
In such a "brutish" labour market, why not introduce a decent minimum wage and legislate against casualisation of work rather than pander to Daily Fail and Sun inspired racism. By the way, Poland is not Eastern European, it's in central Europe.
--
A living wage is code for an easy life.
i.e. if you can have everything you want by doing any job you'll have an incentive to take the easiest job going - that's what communism is.
21 June 2012 11:36PM
so it will no longer be Labour policy to encourage immigration to change the social fabric of the UK to rub the Torys nose in it
Or will this still be the secret policy ?
21 June 2012 11:38PM
Opposition to mass immigration is not racism. I have nothing against immigrants themselves - and since I am one myself, that would be a bit silly. Immigrants are not the problem - the system is. This country is drastically overpopulated - especially SE England. I can't comprehend how few people notice this. Half our population growth these days comes from immigration. So all our problems regarding shortages of housing, new schools, jobs, energy, food, land etc are effectively being doubled thanks to the last decade of mass immigration.
We need to start doing something about this. (No, not deporting huge numbers of people, before you jump in. But pulling up the drawbridge. And putting strong tax incentives to encourage smaller families.)
21 June 2012 11:41PM
How many vote Labour, I wonder - 90-95%
21 June 2012 11:42PM
^ *question mark*
21 June 2012 11:43PM
These strikes are wrong at a time when negotiations are still going on. But parents and the public have been let down by both sides because the government has acted in a reckless and provocative manner. After today’s disruption, I urge both sides to put aside the rhetoric, get round the negotiating table and stop it happening again.
21 June 2012 11:43PM
Blue Labour are back then, for now at least. It does make me laugh how they compromise on any principle in the pursuit of votes, it's shameless stuff. Who is this cruddas kidding, running on a left wing message? Labour are so confused in their messages and resembles a party with no backbone with policy positions that can simply be abandoned rather than defended. It's a pattern of behaviour that should frighten any loyal labour supporter.
It's yet more of the end justifies the means for Labour, anything for power (and the people of this country see it all too well).
21 June 2012 11:44PM
And putting strong tax incentives to encourage smaller families.
I have read recently that even the well-known and much-celebrated Brasilian social welfare programme La Bolsa Familia limits all child-related benefits to a maximum of three children per family.
21 June 2012 11:47PM
Thank you Jon Cruddas. At last you're getting through to these Labour Politicians
Keep it up. you'll have the tories on their knees if you pursue the policies that REALLY matter to the people of the UK
21 June 2012 11:48PM
will they do anything about the coach and horses that people are driving through the intra company transfers loophole?
last job i had 1/2 IT staff were from outside the EU and here i am still stuck unemployed and i would imagine that most of that money is going back abroad...
21 June 2012 11:48PM
It's easy to blame immigrants instead of the vested interests hoarding living space and the resources that people could use to create their own jobs and opportunities. People need something to rage at because of the state of things and immigrants are a convenient target. Admitting there's a wider problem might drive the poor dears insane as they realise how much they're being shafted.
21 June 2012 11:49PM
@youarehavingalaugh
seriously what is your job? what is you do for the UK apart from annoy people on CIF?
21 June 2012 11:49PM
Hahahaha...
21 June 2012 11:50PM
This should have been an issue for the left a decade ago. Immigration is always asymmetrical in that it hits those at the bottom of society the hardest. It's these people that are having to compete with immigrants for all too few houses, jobs and resources/services.
We want a society that is prepared to invest in people but that isn't going to happen when it's so easy to get (temporary) immigrants to plug any gaps in a skills shortage.
This doesn't have to pander to xenophobia as it's not a race/religion/whatever issue. It's a numbers issue. There's too many people and not enough jobs, houses and services.
21 June 2012 11:51PM
He is probably a schoolboy.
21 June 2012 11:51PM
There is an increasing influx of economic migrants from other member states, and they are free to move and work in UK unhindered under the EU open border policy. Further, I disagree with Milliband. It is possible to halt this movement, and it can be done by withdrawing the UK's membership of the EU. Milliband knows all this, and is political grandstanding.